


A word with you

by Penstrokes



Series: the request collection [4]
Category: Super Science Friends (Cartoon)
Genre: Edison being genuine, Gen, Mostly historically accurate, Tesla being serious, The most cannon compliant thing I've written in a while, for Liz because she guessed the previous reference, request fic, some historical inaccuracies for cannon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:00:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24128554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penstrokes/pseuds/Penstrokes
Summary: Tesla thinks he's an idiot for accepting Edison's invitation to lunch. Yet he can't quite pass up on the offer of a free meal, if only to make Edison pay for something.  What Edison's real reason to invite him might change things between them.Might.
Series: the request collection [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1087791
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	A word with you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FeralWaffle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeralWaffle/gifts).



Glenmont was a nice home, but he didn't like being in it's presence. It was so much fancier and roomier than he'd ever lived in aside from those college days. It reeked of wealth that was forever out of his grasp. Of course, there was the fact that whenever it was in his grasp he dedicated it largely to science. 

Tesla was a fool for coming to Edison, especially alone. His experience working for him and being on the snake pit was enough to teach him to be wary. 

Not enough to not take him up on the offer. A private luncheon, just to talk. 

That has been the promise, but Tesla knew better than to be too willing to believe those sweet nothings. Tesla composed himself. This was no time to let his emotions take over. He needed logic. If he had learned nothing else, it was that Edison was an expert at manipulating emotions and taking advantage of it. It came hand in hand with his ability to captivate the media. This was not always to Edison's advantage as Tesla reminded himself. He could not allow the other man to get under his skin and into his head

He'd already done that too many times to count. 

He would, however, let himself savor all of Edison's failures. Especially the ones where the news had been so eager to jump on. 

Tesla rang the doorbell and waited. 

A woman appeared, watching him before recognising who the stranger at the door was. 

"You must be Mr.Tesla. I assume you have business with Mr. Edison today?" She opened the door wider, dark brown hair and matching eyes held their gaze. 

" You could say that." He answered.

" I believe he's in the dining room, follow me." 

The inside of Edison's home was just as rich as the outside. It was well furnished and decorated. Paintings and photographs hung on the wall, showcasing the owner's taste in art. Tesla would have scoffed at the photos of Edison on the wall. As if the man needed to see anymore of himself or his work around him. 

Edison wasn't yet at the dining room, instead, he was preoccupied in the study, as informed by another housekeeper. It didn't take him long to appear, after Tesla had seated himself, waiting. 

The kitchen was nice. Fancy. Tesla had told others and himself that he didn't mind the hotel hopping before he was recruited by Churchill. An attempt to convince others but also himself while maintaining an image for his life's work. He missed the inside of a home. The sense of permanence. For now the tower was the closest thing he had to stability since he'd become an adult. 

" Oh, Tesla. So glad you decided to join. I must say, I've been eager to see you in person and have a talk with you." Edison smiled that wide, eager grin. Another person would have fallen for the sheer charisma and easy going front he was putting up. Tesla simply acknowledged him. 

Whether Edison understood that Tesla wasn't here for his song and dance that he gave to the public and courting investors, he didn't show it. 

" I'm sure you're wondering what I of all people would want to talk to you about. But first, let me ask, how have you been doing? Busy, are we?" Edison's self flattery and faux concern took some of Tesla's self discipline to stop from lashing out. Edison really sounded like he was the center of his own universe. Then again, anyone who got to know him long enough knew that was essentially the case. 

" I'm in a war and technically you're an enemy if only by association. I can't tell you what I've been up to and if you think I'd just tell you my ideas to steal you're even more insane that I thought you were!" Tesla informed him coldly. He may have lost some of his temper towards the end- could he really be blamed?- but if anyone could be angry towards Edison, it was him.

Edison grimaced. 

" Alright, no need to get upset at me. Shall we get down to business or would you rather have lunch first?" Edison asked, diverting the topic of conversation. 

Tesla couldn't believe he had agreed to come. The more Edison talked, the more his contempt grew for him. He had been on the slovenly side when they'd met for the first time. If it weren't for his wife and the people taking care of his personal matters, he would have let himself deteriorate. His well being and appearance were only maintained by others who had more in their heads than the cycle of spending money and making money. People who needed him alive. 

Tesla knew the trap of falling into a cycle of work and marketing himself only to be interrupted by bodily needs of sleep and food. However, he had too much dignity to let his own appearance fall to pieces. He at least knew how to be clean. 

Besides, Tesla had too much of his own pride to acknowledge the similarities between them that may or may not run deeper than that. 

" I'd rather eat first." Tesla answered flatly. 

Even if this meeting did little more than run down his sanity, at least he would get a meal out of it at Edison's expense. 

" Alright, let's have lunch." 

* * *

Even with all the comforts and lavishness available to him, Edison ate little. If Tesla had not come with the intent to eat a good, decent meal, he would have almost felt out of place. Slightly guilty but unapologetic. 

The conversation stalled to a stop. Edison wanting the conversation to continue, to get the point. Yet he wasn't willing to push Tesla to talk. Not yet, anyway.

Tesla didn't say a word, choosing to count his chewing. A neurosis he'd developed somewhere along the line. He was postponing the conversation, debating over what he'd say exactly. Would he outright reject whatever sweet lies Edison had for him or would he play along only to say ' no thanks but thanks for the meal' before he could let himself be scammed yet again. 

In the end it wasn't either of their choices. The meal was eventually finished, with Edison telling some story or discussing some topic with only the half hope that Tesla would answer. The maid took Tesla's empty plates away and the two fell silent again. Edison's eyes were on him, Tesla refusing to meet them with his own.

" So, Nikola, let's get to the bottom of this. I don't want to spend all day in my kitchen. I'd like to get back to my study.. unless you'd like to have the conversation there instead?" Edison suggested, the tinge of hopefulness hiding in his voice. 

" I don't care where we have this conversation. I just want to see how you're trying to steal from me this time." Tesla answered bluntly. 

" Look, Tesla, I know we haven't had the best of relationships, but the least you could do is not attack me before I've had the chance to say what I want to say." Edison frowned, starting to get annoyed. 

" You haven't had the best of track records when it comes to us interacting, much less when anything invention related is involved." Tesla countered. He leaned back, with his arms folded. 

He was a fool. How many times did this make it? He knew the numbers and all the details but did he want to remember all of them right now? 

Was that meal really worth coming all this way to deal with being in Edisons' presence?

"I'm well aware. In fact, that's what I want to talk about." Edison admitted, reluctantly.

This caught Tesla's attention. It wasn't the first time he had pulled this trick, but it was the first time it was in private. No publicity. No statue that he had to admit in hindsight was gaudy- he had let himself be star struck by Edison yet again. Tesla made no move to continue speaking. 

Edison continued.

" When Batch first introduced me to you, I was in awe of you. I can't say I understood you, not on a personal level. Even now, I don't understand why you are the way you are. "

" I thought I had met a man who was truly marvelous. A damn good man who was well educated beyond his years. It wasn't until you decided to go off on your own, championing alternating current as if it had no consequences that my view of you changed!" Edison's voice escalated the closer to the end it got.

Tesla fumed. 

Of course he would go there. He would always go there. An insurmountable difference in their understanding and like of one another. It had soured almost as soon as they had met. 

" Alternating current is not nearly as dangerous as direct current. You just refuse to learn." Tesla snapped, slamming his hands on the table. 

" We are not going back into that topic. Not today. No, we're fine. We're just having a heated conversation. " Edison broke from his line of thought to dismiss a concerned housekeeper who had poked her head inside. 

" This conversation is going nowhere." Tesla said flatly. 

" That's because you won't let me." Edison stressed. " I know what our past together is, but you have to let me talk." He pleaded. 

" Fine." Was all Tesla said. He leaned back with his arms folded. If Edison wanted to just talk then he would let them talk. 

Edison watched Tesla for any more objections. When there were none he continued.

" After we largely went our own ways, with you being out of my time period I changed course. I was still in the electricity business." Edison spoke with a sense of fond nostalgia. 

" You and I are similar, I like to think. Our hearts are bound to one subject, but we find ourselves bouncing from one to another. Perhaps this habit of switching interests of study is more prominent in me than you. You always go back to electricity, don't you, Nikola?" Edison seemed lost in what Tesla could only describe as self indulgent navel gazing. 

Tesla held his tongue, if nothing else, he could use Edison's pointless talking as another point to himself why Edison was far from intelligent. An inferior inventor and person all around. 

It helped him cope with his current lot in life. 

" Well, I think I understand ...some of what I put you through." Edison admitted after a long, reluctant pause. 

This caught Tesla's attention, he sat up straight.

" You? Of all people? How could you even come close to understanding?" Tesla asked.

"I know it's hard to believe..and it's not the first time I've been ripped off or even betrayed by someone I've worked with. Or even had a past with." Edison, folded his hands, staring down at them in deep thought. 

" There have been many skirmishes with other inventors and businessmen. It's the nature of the job. There was one that stood out, around the time the two of us crossed paths. His name was Ezra Gilliland." He began, bitterly mentioning the man by name. 

" We first met back in my telegraph days. Long before I had decided to set up a rudimentary lab. A predecessor to Menlo Park and West Orange." Edison was beginning to ramble again as If he hadn't a care in the world.

" Anyways, we had a several plans together. He wout go and promote my newest version of the phonograph, while I continued with the electrical system." Edison's expression turns sour.

" Oh, but I didn't know it. He had gone behind my back and sold me out. Decades of friendship over because he saw a better deal dangling before his eyes. The worst part is, he had helped me before. Ezra's wife even Introduced me to Mina." Edison lamented. 

Tesla scoffed at the story. It served Edison right in his opinion. The resemblance between the two ex- friends was uncanny. Similar people tended to attract one another after all. It was why he never paid much attention or care towards Ford. He saw some of himself in the mechanic but he knew better than to try and dissuade him from getting too tangled up with Edison. 

If Edison heard Tesla being dismissive towards his story, he didn't show it. 

" I think the gravity of what it really meant to be betrayed, like how I...was unfair to you, happened only recently. You remember Samuel Insull?" Edison asked 

" Of course I do. I believe I saw him with you before." Tesla answered indifferently. 

" Well, I don't know how much you've read up on what I've been doing since you've been gone, so I'll skip to the pertinent information. He became so much more than just a secretary. He became a vital part of the company. He managed the money, Nikola." Edison looked at Tesla expectantly. 

If Tesla was waiting for him to feel pity for him, Edison had picked the wrong person.

"I take it he ran off with it all?" Tesla guessed. 

" No, no..not _exactly_. He did well. _Very_ well. So much so that he… would have essentially kicked me from my own company. They were going to merge Edison electric and Thomson- Houston into some other business. They were going to scrub my name from my own company."

" But your name is still there isn't it?" Tesla questioned. He remembered seeing the name and logo on the electrical tube that Ford had been handing out to the orphans.

"Not without a fight." Edison admitted. " I won't bore you with the business side of things, I barely want to pay attention to it if I didn't have to." He waved away the topic.

" The- the point is... I'm _sorry_." 

He had said it and now it hung in the air between them. Only the ambient noise permeated the silence.

" Do you hate Insull?" Tesla asked. How far did this wound run? Did it run as deep as the one between Edison and himself?

"...I forgive him on a level. But I can't say the trust is there anymore. I see him in a different light now." Edison confessed. 

Tesla frowned, a sneaking suspicion coming upon him. It would be the same song and dance between them eternally. Or at least until one of them died.

No. He was still licking those wounds even after Edison had been dead for a decade. Even in death his influence lingered around Tesla. 

" You expect me to do the same to _you_? _You_ think you can just call me over, tell me some sob story and tell me you want me to just forgive and forget what _you've_ done?" Tesla's voice began to rise.

" I'd like to be _forgiven_ , yes. That's the whole reason I wanted you here in the first place!" Edison's voice rose to match his own. 

"Well you can forget it. Your slights against me are bigger. You ruined me and dragged my work through the mud. You still have everything. How can you say your suffering is comparable?" Tesla had enough. He had gotten his meal and listened to the pity party his former employer threw. There was nothing left for him here. 

" _Goodbye_ , Thomas." Tesla walked past him towards the door when Edison grabbed his arm suddenly. Tesla recoiled, turning around to pry his hand off. Edison was a dirty man who knew if only the bare basics of hygiene and even _that_ he didn't follow. 

" Nikola-"

" Don't you 'Nikola' me. What right do you have to call me by first name?" A sphere of electricity formed in Tesla's hand that he'd pulled away. 

Edison didn't let go, but he did lean backwards. His breathing grew shaky. They both knew what electricity could do to a person. Yes, Tesla had hit Edison with electricity before but even as angry as he'd been, he hadn't been aiming to _kill_. 

Injure? Yes.

Kill? Back then, no. But now? The temptation was great. 

" Let. Go." Tesla snarled. 

" _Listen_ to me." Edison begged. 

" I've already listened. What else is there to _discuss_? You're wasting my time." Tesla was losing his mind.

" I want to make it up to you. I want to _apologise_." Edison pleaded. 

Tesla turned off the electricity. 

" Make it up _how_ , exactly? What you did isn't easy to undo." Tesla reminded him.

If it ever could be undone. 

"I wanted to ask. In person." Edison said. Slowly, he let go of Tesla's arm. 

Tesla slowly made his way back to his seat. 

" Name your demand." Edison answered meekly. 

" Anything I ask for?" Tesla inquired. He had been ripped off enough times to know to read the find print. 

" Within reason." Edison reminded him. 

"First off, I want money." Tesla began. 

Edison inhaled sharply. " I'm actually strapped for cash. My...latest endeavor cost me a lot of money." 

" How much?" Tesla asked.

" How much do I have left or how much I wasted?" Edison asked, bracing himself. 

" Can you give me the Fifty thousand you promised me?" Tesla would not let up on this. Not again. 

" I only have two million right now." Edison stressed. 

" Fifty thousand." 

" Is there anyway I could bump you down to something lower? I could throw in some stocks and bonds?" Edison suggested.

Tesla's mouth tensed, pressed firm.

" What about if I paid in installments? Tesla please, I still have a family to provide for. Employees to pay." Edison tried to reason. 

Tesla wanted Edison to live up to a promise he had broken. The idea of making Edison's life just a little harder, just a little more poor was part of some revenge fantasy come true. 

How much collateral damage was he willing to incur? His beef was with Edison alone. Well, as far as the personal went. 

" Fine. I also want you to do some proper research on alternating current and stop with your ' alternating current is deadly' nonsense." Tesla had tentatively won one battle. How many more could he propose?

Edison answered his request with a deadpan expression. 

" Absolutely not. I already had to struggle with my company behind the scenes. Let's stick to subjects that directly involve just the two of _us_." 

Tesla jumped at the potential for at least a consolation prize.

" Then I want you to undo the slander against me and my work." Tesla demanded.

" I will...at least _consider_ that." Edison said with some consideration in his own voice.

" Understand, Nikola, there's only so much I can do with what the public runs with and collectively remember." Edison explained after getting a dirty look from Tesla. 

"Most of all. I want you to _respect_ me." Tesla made his final demand. Half wasn't bad. Even getting Edison to come through on one of them would be a test of trust. If he got him to commit to three of them he'd be a changed man. 

Both of them.

"If I may, I'd like to make a request of my own on that front. I want to wipe away the ill will between us. A fresh start. What do you say?" Edison looked sincere. But he still had yet to prove himself. 

" How do I know I can trust you?" Tesla pushed, looking stern. He couldn't show signs of weakness. Not here. Not now.

" You're going to have to _trust_ me." 

Tesla held his tongue. He was right but he could be walking into another trap. 

Trust. 

The lynch pin at the center of it all. 

It had started with broken promises and trust. A lack of respect. 

It could end with trust and respect. 

" If I go back on my word, you can...do to me what you'd like. Punish me how you see fit. My word is my bond. I _swear_ on it." Edison offered. 

"No body guards." 

Edison hesitated.

" You don't plan on _killing_ me, do you?". Edison looked nervous. Fingers digging into the table as he tried to decipher what Tesla had in store. 

Truth be told, Tesla didn't know either. Killing, as terrible as it was had gotten easier for him because of world war 2. Fantasy was different than reality. As much as it had been rewarding mentally to get revenge, there was no telling how it would actually be if he acted on it.

Churchill would intervene if he knew. 

" ...No." Tesla answered at last, giving Edison an easy breath. 

" I want a new relationship between us. I want to work together. As equals." Edison had said all he had wanted to say. 

Tesla stood up to leave. This time, Edison didn't stop him. Briefly, Tesla lingered besides him.

"We'll see." Was all Tesla said.

And then he was gone.


End file.
